Friday, February 05, 2010

What must it have been like, I wondered recently, to have had Paul McCartney’s brain in the 1960s? Every few days you’d wake up, perhaps sit at a piano, waggle your head a bit, say ‘Wa-hey!’ and your brain would produce a tune for you. Sometimes it might be something like Rocky Raccoon or Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, but then on other days it might be something like Yesterday or Let it Be.

Being a music lover devoid of musical talent, I have always regarded with awe and jealousy those rare people who can write memorable melodies. Not just Paul McCartney or Brian Wilson or Mozart or Handel, but anyone who can pen something everyone can whistle. Like the great atheist Bjorn from Abba. Or Noel Gallagher. Or even Pete Waterman, why not. It seems a mysterious witchcraft: the ability to arrange a limited number of notes in a particular, original sequence and rhythm so that hearers can easily and with pleasure repeat that sequence whenever they wish (or sometimes, with great irritation when they don’t wish).

Clearly it is an innate gift afforded to very few. Ringo Starr in some amusing interview told how he would try to write songs but when he presented them to the rest of the Beatles they would inform him that he had unintentionally ripped off a popular tune of the day, and he would say “Oh yeah.”

We can confidently and unhesitatingly dismiss the ‘Outliers’ theory of that audacious charlatan and peddler of the obvious or empty Malcolm Gladwell, whereby he posits that the Beatles’ genius can be explained by the 10,000 hours of practice they had in Hamburg nightclubs. This is clearly nonsense.

First, there are countless thousands of jobbing musicians who put in the hours but never write a Penny Lane or indeed a tune a tenth as good as the most innocuous Beatles album track.

Second, the gift nearly always declines with years rather than improving.eg. Paul McCartney’s brain in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Generally speaking most bands’ debut albums contain their best tunes, and those artists with longevity (Dylan, Springsteen, Waits, Cave etc) rely on other qualities in their later years, ie. songcraft. Noel Gallagher had never even been in a band when his Muse provided him with all the melodies for the first two Oasis albums. It deserted him immediately afterwards, well before he had put in the 10,000 hours.

21 comments:

It's hard to describe, Brit, this waking up with original melodies on the brain. You either have it or you haven't. But look at it another way. You could be a good drummer and, in humble opinion, Ringo had better luck with women than either John or Paul. I mean, she's a Bond girl.

I'm not sure your theory about the talent declining with years holds up when measured against the Broadway masters, G & S, Gershwin, Berlin, etc. Is it possible the problem with rock bands is that initial success spawns a kind of artistic pretentiousness? It certainly did with Lennon.

My own non-intuitive, lateral, off-the-wall theory is that if you grow a hairstyle like Albert Einstein's and look all droopy, people will think you're very clever. I've decided to try to benefit from this insight whilst I still can.

worm, I do believe you have nailed it. Imagine the loss if old J.S. Bach had ever said to himself: "How can I justify wasting my life writing counterpoint when people are going hungry? I want to make a difference."

I love the new Beatles theme of the blog Brit, especially as I'm slowly making my way through the remasters (one-by-one mind you, the box set is too big an investment.) Talking about the fab four, have you seen Nowhere Boy yet? If you can get past the fact that Aaron Johnson looks and sounds more like Ray Quinn than John Lennon, it's quite lovely.

i think creative gifts are generally sparked into life by personal need - as a way of understanding the world & one's self - even if the artist himself might not think he has such a need (i would guess, if you asked the Fab 4 in 1964, if they had this need, they would have thought it ludicrous).

This is more obviously the case with writers, philosophers - Nietzsche, for example, or TS Eliot. But i think that need is the fire behind all creativity.

Pop music seems to do with youth - perhaps why so many rock stars die age 27 or 28. When you hit 30ish your sense of yourself changes - it might be that pop musicians lose the need at that age, especially if they're rich, and so the gift disappears. i'd guess that a Neil Young or Nick Cave has a deeper need, and so will keep making music, each song like a question, because their world somehow seems a bit "off", not quite right. When Morpheus says to Neo, "all your life you've felt there was something wrong with the world - and this feeling has brought you to me", he could as well be the Muse.

i met someone recently who was a composer in an earlier life, centuries ago. He's just a kid now, doesn't like classical music, but is unusually adept at the guitar - he picked it up one day and within a few months it's like he was born with it. Before i knew who he was i felt there was "something" in him, a kind of force; i suspect it's like what Bertrand Russell saw in Wittgenstein in 1911, an unformed potential, a great need.

If it wasn't for the 3-dimensional goodness I'd say don't waste your babysit on Avatar. Surely the most interesting aspect of a plot which includes an inter-species love story is the technicalities of alien mating. But the moral, social, psychological and (perhaps above all) logistical issues extraterrestrial loving brings up are completely brushed aside and instead we're offered an old oppressor goes native yarn, which works better with cowboys and indians anyway. The 3D is fun though.

One of the advantages of being able to play the guitar and sing at the same time is not having to own any Beatles albums.All I need is my battered copy of 'The Beatles Complete' song book...

On hearing that, in his youth, Eric 'God (awful)' Clapton wouldn't have anything to do with guitarists that didn't know the complete works of Robert Johnson, I toyed with the idea of avoiding the company of musicians that didn't know how to play the 27 No. 1's of the fab four...

Regarding Nick Cave, his early stuff with the Birthday Party is awful, and the Bad Seeds didn't get good until Tender Prey recorded when he was 30-ish... then his best album is probably the Boatman's Call, recorded when he was 40-ish...